Kurdistan Parliament delays summer recess for 15 days to form KRG cabinet

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region's Parliament on Sunday in a majority vote decided to delay its summer recess to buy more time to form of the new Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) cabinet.

The legislative body had previously called on all MPs to attend the special meeting in a statement posted on its website, signed by Acting Speaker Vala Fareed. The process of filling the senior posts in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has been slow, as party leaders have repeatedly failed to achieve a compromise.

The delay comes as the Prime Minister-designate Masrour Barzani has just 12 days left to form the new KRG cabinet.

On June 12, 2019, the President of the autonomous Kurdistan Region, Nechirvan Barzani, issued a formal letter asking the prime minister-designate to form the new KRG cabinet.

Masrour Barzani previously stated that he would attempt to finalize the formation of the new cabinet before the legal deadline, which is 30 days from June 12—the day he was officially tasked with doing so.

In mid-June, Barzani met with the participating parties in the Kurdistan Region, called them to present their candidates with CVs.

The Kurdistan Region held a parliamentary election in late September in which the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) secured 45 seats out of a total of 111 in the regional legislature, beating out the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) 21 seats and Gorran, who won 12.